In recent years attention has been ever-increasingly drawn to the need for a system which allows a patient, who may or may not be capable of communicating, to alert medical staff of a pre-existing medical condition or of an advance directive regarding certain medical decisions, e.g., living wills. One such system is described in applicant's own U.S. Pat. No. 5,357,861 entitled "Medical Stamp System and Method of Use," incorporated herein by reference. This stamp system provides an ink stamp kit to be used by a physician in marking a patient with indicia for withholding extraordinary medical care after receiving appropriate authorization. However, due to certain regulations and concerns about re-using any product which has been in contact with a patient, there exists a need in the art for an alternative medical marking system to alleviate these concerns.
Another method for marking the skin of a patient is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,306,271, 5,407,440, and 5,743,899 all to Zinreich et al., each incorporated herein by reference. This method provides for radiation therapy marking to delineate a radiation portal area on a patient's skin surface. The device includes a set of radiation therapy skin markers which are releasably attached to a backing liner and include an adhesive surface such that the markers may be releasably attached to a patient's skin surface. This marking method allows the tape-like markers to be readily removed (intentionally or accidentally) which then can lead to loss of the marker or re-adherence to an improper location or to another patient. Such type of markers are, therefore, unsuitable for medical alerts or advance directives which should be semi-permanent in nature and not reusable.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a medical alert message emblem, kit, and method which provides a plurality of one-time use semi-permanent skin markers for various messages, such as for pre-existing medical conditions or advance directives regarding certain medical decisions.